The New Jersey Devils went down 0-2 in yet another series. It isn’t the best idea to keep doing that but they believe that they can come back. They needed to change things up against the Carolina Hurricanes if they wanted to do it again.
Of course, they went back to Vitek Vanecek after Akira Schmid played so well earlier in the first round but that wasn’t the only difference.
Luke Hughes, who played the last two games of the regular season, was inserted into the postseason lineup for the first time. He claimed he was ready and Lindy Ruff believed in him.
Well, we thought that this move might fire Jack Hughes up and it did. He had two goals and two assists for four points. They need him to lead the offense like that.
One of Jack’s assists came on a goal scored by Damon Severson. Luke Hughes also had one on the same goal. In addition to that, Luke had another assist so the brothers combined for six total points.
The New Jersey Devils got a win in game 3 on the back of the Hughes brothers.
Obviously, figuring in on all of those goals is important. That is what each of them was brought in to do over the years. They led this team to another win by a final score of 8-4.
It wasn’t perfect for them as some mistakes on the power play led to a few short-handed goals for the Hurricanes. The Devils became the fourth team to allow three short-handed goals in a single playoff game. All four won. Outside of those blemishes, it was an amazing game for this duo.
Nico Hischier also had a very good game. He was all over the ice defensively and scored his first of the playoffs. He also added an assist. Outside of Jack, Nico was the best player on either team.
When the Hughes brothers and Nico all dominate like this, they are very hard to beat. It will be interesting to see how they respond in game four as they try to tie things up.
If they play the way that they did in this one on Sunday afternoon, it is going to be hard to take them down. After what happened to the Devils in round one, they should believe in themselves which is dangerous for Carolina.